CELINA — The pretenses of smooth-sailing sectional finals out of the way for both the Celina and St. Marys girls soccer teams, the match they’ve been waiting almost two months to replay is set.

St. Marys captured the Division II sectional title at Celilna with a workmanlike 5-0 win over Van Wert to set up a rematch with rival Bulldogs.

Celina defeated Wapakoneta 3-0 on Saturday in the first sectional title game.

Division II Girls Sectional Soccer

St. Marys 5, Van Wert 0

CELINA — The pretenses of smooth-sailing sectional finals out of the way for both the Celina and St. Marys girls soccer teams, the match they’ve been waiting almost two months to replay is set.

St. Marys captured the Division II sectional title at Celilna with a workmanlike 5-0 win over Van Wert to set up a rematch with rival Bulldogs.

Celina defeated Wapakoneta 3-0 on Saturday in the first sectional title game.

The Roughriders (12-1-4) will play Celina on Wednesday at Celina at 7 p.m. in a distirct semi-final match.

“We got to watch the Celina match and they kind of won the same way we did with a 3-0 win, so I guess we’ll get some things done this week and see Celina again,” St. Marys head coach Paul Dingledine said. “We’ll see what happens.”

St. Marys and Celina played to a 1-1 tie back on Sept. 15.

Ashleigh Falk scored the first goal of the match at the 31:40 mark in the first half with an assist from Kayla Boysell.

St. Marys went up 2-0 on Courtney Christman’s rebound goal with 27:09 left in the first half.

Falk added her second goal of the match at the 16:20 mark to put the Riders up 3-0. Falk now leads the Roughriders with 19 goals on the season.

St. Marys’ Jamie James booted in St. Marys’ fourth goal at the 16:13 mark of the second half.

Sara Lininger finished off the scoring for St. Marys with a goal with 7:52 left.

Division II Boys Sectional Soccer

Elida 2, St. Marys 1

SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP — Shawnee’s soccer field hasn’t been kind to the St. Marys Roughriders over the past decade.

The latest postseason disappointment came at the hands of a Cinderella Elida team headed to the district after a three-win regular season.

Elida’s Trey Bowman scored a golden goal with three minutes left in the first extra period of overtime to bounce the higher-seeded Roughriders 2-1 from the Division II sectional tournament at Shawnee on Saturday afternoon.

“We just didn’t take advantage of our chances,” St. Marys head coach Dave Ring said. “We dominated the play, but Elida had heart. They reminded me of the old St. Marys teams. Now I know how they felt (back then).”

St. Marys has been bounced from the tournament the past seven seasons at Shawnee, three times in matches that went to overtime. The last three tournament losses came to Wapakoneta.

This time St. Marys lost to the unlikeliest of teams of its Shawnee disappointments.

“I can’t complain about the effort,” Ring said. “The enthusiasm was there. We gave a spirited battle. It just wasn’t there.”

A 12-win season ended for St. Marys against a team it beat 3-1 in the regular season back on Sept. 8, but without its head coach and with the momentum of a first-round upset over Wapakoneta still in its minds Elida pulled off an even bigger heist on Saturday.

Elida head coach Tom Thomas was absent to be the best man in his brother’s wedding. Thomas’ team did the rest piloted by assistant coach Scott Warris.

“It tore his heart up to not be here, but they know how they need to play and just got the job done,” Warris said.

While Elida let up a game-tying goal with just five minutes left in regulation when St. Marys’ Zack Wilker boomed in a kick inside the left post, the Bulldogs rebounded with Bowman’s second goal of the match to stun the Roughriders in overtime.

“It fell into place and it all went the way it needed to go,” Warris said. “We got it to Trey’s feet. Trey did what he does best. He finished for us.”

St. Marys players stood stunned on the field as Elida’s team stormed onto the field to celebrate its fifth win and a sectional crown.

“We were unlucky,” Ring said about the game-winner. “We had a guy step up, it takes a bad bounce and we got unlucky.”

Bowman’s first goal came with 20 minutes left in the second half to put the Bulldogs up 1-0.

Division II Sectional Volleyball at Lima Senior

Wapakoneta 3, St. Marys 0

LIMA — Armed with a new defensive scheme and a new line-up since the last time the two teams played, the Wapakoneta Redskins erased the memories of a past loss to St. Marys and broke new ground on Saturday night.

The Redskins won their first-ever sectional title with a three-game sweep ot its Auglaize County rival St. Marys at Lima Senior High School.

The 26-24, 25-19, 25-22 Division II sectional final win means Wapakoneta advances to the district tournament for the first time in school history.

Avenging a regular season loss to the Roughriders didn’t feel too bad to Wapak head coach Keith Rambin and his Redskins, either.

“I’ve said all along that the only team that scares me is my own team,” Rambin said. “We’ve got a great team and when they decide to play, they can play with anybody.”

“We let up a lot of runs and played pretty inconsistently,” St. Marys head coach Tricia Rosenbeck said. “It had a lot to do with us making unforced errors, which you can’t do against a good team like Wapak.”

While Wapakoneta broke new ground with its 3-0 win, Celina kept its string of district appearnances intact with a 25-19, 25-16, 25-12 win over Elida in the first match on Saturday.

Celina and Wapakoneta advance to this week’s district tournament at Liberty-Benton. Celina will play at 6 p.m. against Pemberville Eastwood. Wapakoneta will play at 7:15 p.m. against Napoleon.

St. Marys ran the Redskins out of the gym back on Oct. 4 in four games. After Wapakoneta won the first game, St. Marys won the next three games against a Redskin team in strategic transition.

“We had just put in a new defense that week called the middle-up defense,” Ramblin said. “We hadn’t played it all year and we were switching.

“We weren’t ready to compete for a WBL title at that point,” Ramblin added. “The pressure got to them. St. Marys was better on that night, but we’re a very good squad.”

Wapakoneta also moved around players to counteract St. Marys’ big hitter Jenny Brown.

“We knew Jenny Brown was their go-to person, it was no big secret,” Ramblin said. “So I flip-flopped our middles and put Morgan (Quellhorst) in the middle and also moved Megan Hayzlett next to Morgan. Megan’s never played next to Morgan. Megan is a lot longer. It worked out real well against Bath and it worked well tonight. You put those two together and that’s a big wall.”

Jenny Brown finished the match with 11 kills, but held her to two in the key second game. The Roughriders got out to a 11-7 lead in that second game before Wapakoneta scored six straight points to grab control of the game and the match.

“That was the key to the game, slowing down Jenny Brown,” Ramblin said.

St. Marys head coach Tricia Rosenbeck said unlike Wednesday night, her team couldn’t find secondary hitters.

“We needed other people to put the ball away and we couldn’t find it tonight,” Rosenbeck said.

With Quellhorst and Hayzlett sealing off the middle defensively, the Redskins turned to Krissy Stinebaugh for hitting. Stinebaugh had a big night hitting with 16 kills.

Senior-laden St. Marys bows out of the tournament with an 18-6 record, ending the run for nine seniors that included a 7-2 record in the WBL and a six-match winning streak heading into the sectional final.

“It’s really disappointing, especially to go out with a great group of seniors,” Rosenbeck said. “They brought a lot to this program and I was hopin it would go a lot longer than the sectional final.”

Division II Cross Country at Ottawa

OTTAWA — The St. Marys cross country teams advanced a pair of runners to the regional meet with Top 15 finishes at Sunday’s postponed district cross country race at Ottawa Park.

St. Marys freshman Hannah Tobin advanced to the regional with a 22:05 time and a 15th-place finish. The top 16 runners advanced to the Tiffin Regional.

St. Marys’ Nick Durkee finished ninth overall with a 17:38 time and will advance to the Tiffin Regional next Saturday.

The St. Marys girls took 7th in the meet. Rounding out the Rider girls team’s top runners were Christine Sullivan with a personal best time of 22:53, Sarah Wilker with a time of 23:31, Jessica Jeffries with a time of 24:33, and Carol Saunders with a personal best time of 25:30.

Rounding out the Rider boys’ line-up were Alex Mielke with a time of 18:35, John Meier with a time of 18:56, Kyle Oswalt with a time of 19:39, and Luke Grieshop with a time of 20:18.

Division III Cross Country at Spencerville

SPENCERVILLE — The Minster boys and girls cross country teams advanced to the regional tournament with fine finishes at the Division III district meet at Spencerville.

Minster took second in the boys meet with 66 points, behind first-place St. Henry’s 36 points.

Francis Slonkosky paced the Wildcats with a third place finish and 16:52 time.

New Knoxville’s Isaac Kuntz will go to the regional as an individual with a fourth place finish and a 17:03 time.

LIMA — With two second half goals the Lima Central Catholic Thunderbirds knocked the New Knoxville Rangers out of the Division III boy’s soccer tournament Saturday 3-0 at Lima Stadium.

“I don’t think the scoreboard is representative of what the game was,” Rangers head coach Tony Hunt said.

It took only two and a half minutes for the Thunderbirds to get on the scoreboard. With 37:37 left in the first half LCC had a throw in from the far sideline and when the ball went in the middle Travis Clark got a head on the ball for a goal/

“It was a long throw,” Hunt said. “The Thunderbirds treat all their throws ins like corner kicks and they got a goal in the first three minutes and that was tough.”

The Rangers hung tough and battled LCC throughout the first half and trailed only 1-0 at halftime, but New Knoxville had several chances in the second half.

“In the second half we had some opportunities,” Hunt said. “We pushed a couple guys forward and already being down a goal we had to take some chances. “

In the second half both teams went back and forth trading shots until Clark got his second goal of the game off an assist from Axle Rudling with 28:25 left.

Just two minutes later the Rangers had their best opportunity on a direct kick, but the shot by Isaiah Oeding hit off the crossbar.

The Thunderbirds put the game away with 4:18 left on a goal from Sean Daley for a 3-0 lead.

The Rangers had two seniors play their final match for New Knoxville in John Thompson and Riese Fiegel.

“Both of our seniors are great players,” Hunt said. “John Thompson actually started the season as our goalkeeper out of necessity and then moved to a defensive mid position.

“Riese Fiegel has been an attacker for us,” Hunt said. “Both players will be tough to replace next year.”

LCC had 13 shots on goal in the game, while New Knoxville had 9 shots. Both teams had five saves and LCC had five corner kicks and the Rangers had two.

The Rangers end their season at 6-11, while LCC (14-3-1) will face Liberty Benton in the sectional championship game Wednesday at 7:30. Liberty Benton defeated Ft. Jennings 2-1 in the earlier game.

Division III Sectional Volleyball at Lincolnview

LCC 3, New Bremen 0

LINCOLNVIEW— The New Bremen Cardinals volleyball team had a tough time Saturday evening containing the Lima Central Catholic Thunderbirds as LCC defeated the Cardinals 25-12, 25-10 and 25-21 in the Division III sectional championship match played at Lincolnview High School.

“We were shell shocked,” Cardinals head coach Theresa Jenkins said. “We couldn’t do anything in the first two sets with serve-receiving.”

In the first set the Thunderbirds struck quickly. After gaining the serve, Madison George served four straight points, including two aces, to make the score 5-0.

Both teams traded serves and Sydney Mohler added two points to increase the lead to 10-4 and cause New Bremen to call timeout. After the timeout, New Bremen went on a 4-2 run, but LCC regained the serve and Kathryn Ferry served 10 straight points for a 22-8 lead. Both teams traded serves with Sarah Pajka getting the kill for the 25-12 LCC victory.

The second set started similar to the first set as George served the first eight points for the Thunderbirds prompting New Bremen to call timeout.

Following the timeout, the Cardinals cut the lead in half with three serves from Karli Jones. With the score 11-4, the Cardinals cut the lead to 12-8 with a pair of serves from Haley Moeller.

LCC concluded the set with six points from Mohler and the last five points, four being aces, from Pajka for the 25-10 victory.

In the third set New Bremen got back to playing Cardinal volleyball. The Thunderbirds still got out to a 6-1 lead, but New Bremen came back with 11 of the next 13 points to grab a 12-8 lead.

Once again LCC came back strong with four serves from Pajka to lead 13-12. Serving went back and forth for most of the remainder of the set with Tylyn Taylor getting the kill for the 25-21 victory and the match.

Two seniors played their final match for the Cardinals in Gina Griesdorn and Jessie Rindler.